Food prices skyrocketing again!

You can buy a litre of olive oil in M&S for £9, many other products are comparable or often even cheaper than other shops.

Unless it's impossible, it's really worth shopping around as you can save loads this way.

We've always done this as have struggled badly in the past so simply didn't have the luxury of shopping week to week in the most convenient supermarket, regardless of the cost. We had to make our money stretch by buying what was cheapest and it's a good habit that's stuck.

I work in a shop and buy toiletries when it's double discount week for us, which is twice a year. Haven't had to work in the toiletry section for a couple of months, but when tidying it up the other day I noticed quite a few things had gone up noticeably in price.

Sorry, where am I complaining about policy decisions or their consequences ? I don't think you read my post properly.

I don't 'hate' that Tesco care about their profits - I just think it's disingenuous of them to blame the government for these decisions. Tesco have been squeezing suppliers 'till the pips squeak for decades. They don't have the high ground.

I noticed the same yesterday. Quite a few of my regular buys have gone up in price since Christmas. Butter is up 10p, chocolate 25p, DC’s milk 25p, grapes 15p and it all adds up. Our grocery bill is about £100 per week and we almost never have meat, don’t drink and our treats are shortbread biscuits and one own brand chocolate bar per week.

My strategy now is to check what’s on offer in Tesco and meal plan around that. Last week we had cauliflower three ways 😄

With utility bills, insurance and all the other things going up too I don’t know how people manage.

5 years ago when my partner and I first got together, I remember we did the massive Christmas food shop. Everything was sliding off the top of the trolley and it was £120 and I commented I'd never done a food shop over £100 before and was shocked.
Now, a basic weekly shop, no treats just essentials and only half a trolley comes to £100 every time 😔

I agree with you and with OP's husband. They haven't gone up in almost half a year, some have even gone down.

M&S baked beans are quite good, the small tins are 30p.

I mean, the fact the CEO is on £5m a year isn’t helping

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65828000.amp

@Reetpetitenot

They exist to make profit. It's the only reason - not to feed the nation, not to provide employment, but to make profit to return to shareholders. Exactly the same as their workforce go to work to get paid. No shelf stocker will work for free, not 10min of free overtime.

You may hate it what you like, but to make policy decisions like this is just stupid. To vote for party expected to make such decisions and then complain about consequences is stupid.

The sizes are shrinking too! Never mind the 3% wage increase! growl!!!

It's not the same anyway now it's full of horrible palm oil. It seems to be getting harder and harder to find a brand that doesn't use it. I'm not a lover of Lindt.

The thing that did cause me to do a double-take was the price of olive oil. The first thing I noticed that there were none of the old, larger-sized bottles on the shelves. A medium-sized bottle costs about £11!

Tesco's profits increased during Col crisis. This would suggest they are taking advantage. Profits of nearly £3bn. They can afford the NI increases. They can afford not to redund staff. They can afford to pay their staff more. They've made a choice not to. Which is fine, but don't blame everyone else.

Just to add - previous rounds of inflation, in 2023-early 2024 were global driven by covid and war, it was actually less steep here than in Europe. This round is very UK specific, there isn't much inflation in e.g. EU, means current spike is a direct consequence of Labour budget.
And this is still before farmers start responding to their taxes.
Well, UK voted for both Brexit and now this government, it's only fair after all.

Yes, spot on

https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2024/11/tesco-national-insurance/

I was in booths the other day which I know can be a bit more expensive but Cadbury giant buttons were £4.20! That’s like cinema prices!

The price of cocoa has risen sharply following a series of poor harvests in W Africa. Supply and demand.

I'm not sure why people struggle so much with this concept.

Labour's budget with NI and NMW increases hit businesses massively, retail is being decimated, it's tens and tens of millions.

Look at numbers - NMW increase per employee (assuming 37.5h/week, 49 weeks/year) - £1350.
NI increase for the same employee - £330, so £1670pa per employee.

Tesco employs 330k people - it's £0.5bn cost hit!

It's absolutely massive. No business will ever absorb this, of course there will be price rises and mass redundancies. Whoever believed that Labour will protect "hard working people" but taxing those stinky rich and businesses is frankly an idiot - everyone will pay.

It's not ideological nonsense to say that supermarkets are more interested in their profits then keeping food prices low. It's just fact. Just look at the profits they made doing cost of living crisis they were hardly protecting the consumer.

I was thinking exactly this last night after nipping into Morrisons to get more coffee and a couple of other bits (partner has been doing the shopping the last few months as I’ve just had a baby, so haven’t really kept up with prices). The own brand ground espresso is £3 a bag. For such a long time it was £2.25 or 2 for £4. Antiperspirant £4.50 a can! Standard box of mini weetabix £3:65. Some things are creeping up so they think we won’t notice but then other items are just so bloody expensive it’s unbelievable.

I have noticed it as well.

It usually works out cheaper to buy multipacks of chocolate these days.
in my corner shop a 4 finger KitKat is 89p but a multipack (I think 6) is £1.25

Supermarkets work on single digit margins - it is not highly profitable, but, slightly protected by the fact people always need food other areas of retailing like fashion will suffer more

That chocolate used to be ridiculously cheap though. I've always used a lot of it for baking and until a few years ago, it was 30 p a bar and just as nice as similar products at two or three times the price, the margin must have been tiny, so it's no surprise that it's gone up due to the increase in cocoa prices.

However, it's still 55 p in Aldi, according to the website, I don't think their prices have gone up anywhere near as much as Sainsbury's, Morrisons and Tesco, so worth doing at least some of your shop there if it's an option, with perhaps just an occasional trip to Sainsbury's to stock up on anything you can't get in Aldi.

Like a PP says, supermarkets are not charities, they're businesses that need to make a profit, have relatively small margins and have seen significant increases in their own costs over the last few years (wages, energy and stock all gone up massively).

Agree with this and the budget is going to increase inflation as food retailers look to cover significant additional costs with price increases.
we would have all been a lot better off if they had put a couple of p on income tax

I mean "we" as a country. I also voted Remain but accept the result - but what I struggle to accept is the number of people who voted for this who are now complaining. As if they didn't see it coming. It was entirely predictable that everything was going to get more expensive.

So many people just don't seem to see the link between the referendum result and what is going on, but it was as clear as day that this would happen.